part which mind has to play in life
than a study of history which makes plain how the entire advance
of humanity from savagery to civilization has been dependent upon
intellectual discoveries and inventions, and the extent to which the
things which ordinarily figure most largely in historical writings have
been side issues, or even obstructions for intelligence to overcome.

Pursued in this fashion, history would most naturally become of ethical
value in teaching. Intelligent insight into present forms of associated
life is necessary for a character whose morality is more than colorless
innocence. Historical knowledge helps provide such insight. It is an
organ for analysis of the warp and woof of the present social fabric, of
making known the forces which have woven the pattern. The use of
history for cultivating a socialized intelligence constitutes its moral
significance. It is possible to employ it as a kind of reservoir of
anecdotes to be drawn on to inculcate special moral lessons on this
virtue or that vice. But such teaching is not so much an ethical use of
history as it is an effort to create moral impressions by means of more
or less authentic material. At best, it produces a temporary emotional
glow; at worst, callous indifference to moralizing. The assistance which
may be given by history to a more intelligent sympathetic understanding
of the social situations of the present in which individuals share is a
permanent and constructive moral asset.

Summary. It is the nature of an experience to have implications which
go far beyond what is at first consciously noted in it. Bringing these
connections or implications to consciousness enhances the meaning of the
experience. Any experience, however trivial in its first appearance, is
capable of assuming an indefinite richness of significance by extending
its range of perceived connections. Normal communication with others is
the readiest way of effecting this development, for it links up the
net results of the experience of the group and even the race with the
immediate experience of an individual. By normal communication is meant
that in which there is a joint interest, a common interest, so that one
is eager to give and the other to take. It contrasts with telling or
stating things simply for the sake of impressing them upon another,
merely in order to test him to see how much he has retained and can
literally reproduce.

Geography and history are the two great